Article by Giuliano Santini about Kestutis Vasiliunas Graphic Art

Seeking to broaden and enrich the artistic experience of future students planning to join our academy to study and / or train in the field of graphic and textile arts, every year our ‘PATA’ international summer courses feature do famous foreign professors: one for textile and one for graphic art.

Kestutis Vasiliunas is a protagonist of European graphic art, professor at Vilnius Academy of Arts, organiser of Artist’s Book Triennial and, as his CV states, participant and winner of various exhibitions, symposiums and competitions in various corners of the world.

Works of this Lithuanian graphic artist actually make you think (and how rare is that nowadays!) and send universally understandable or complex messages, encouraging the viewer to adopt a certain position. Thanks to the aptly applied wood carving technique, his engravings resemble scenes full of bright colours, yet they are almost always shrouded in indelible sadness.

In his works, the artist often employs Christian and, in particular, Christ’s iconography, merging in one work elements of both medieval and contemporary art, as if they were two different languages separated by time, and turning his works into symbols, message carriers and judges of dramatic modern reality through the style of pop art.

Giuliano Santini

Prof. Kestutis Vasiliunas was invited by the Academy of Fine Arts Lodz to make the course “Graphic Art in Space”. In the Academy gallery he had the personal exhibition.